Sonata and Destructions
by Odette
Summary: My debut fanfiction chronicling Severus Snape's transformation into a Death Eater and eventual redemption.


  
Sonata and Destructions  
Author: Odette   
  
Disclaimer: Of the following characters, only Nina is my own invention. The rest, as   
well as the setting, belong to J.K. Rowling and various publishers. I am not making any   
money off of this, and it is solely for amusement purposes.   
  
Secondary Disclaimer/Source Citation: The title is borrowed from a poem of the same   
name by Pablo Neruda.  
  
Summary: My debut fan fiction. I'm hoping will become a fairly psychological story   
explaining why Snape joined Voldemort, and also his redemption. Obviously, set in old   
school times.   
  
Ch. 1: In Which our Heroes Think Deep Thoughts and Watch a Talent Show.  
  
She was beautiful, he thought, and he loved her. It became a refrain of sorts,   
echoing around in his head. Somehow, that single sentence had come to embody both the   
hope and misery that plagued his waking hours and his dreams.  
The sudden, raucous applause of the crowd jolted him out of his state of self-pitying   
reflection. I even sound ridiculous to myself, he realized, and with little more than a last   
mournful glance at the girl walking off stage and down the aisle, her light blue robes and   
long blond hair fluttering behind her, he turned his attention to the next performers to   
take the stage: his friend and fellow Slytherin, Lucius Malfoy, performing a very loud and   
very dramatic rendition of Hamlet.  
Despite his general mood of despondency, Severus Snape caught the irony   
immediately and chuckled to himself. Trust Malfoy, of all people, to fancy himself a   
master of drama and tragedy. Bet he didn't even know that the character he was so   
fantastically butchering had been written four hundred years earlier by one of those   
muggles he despised so much. Of course, Severus had more than a bit of suspicion that   
Shakespeare was a warlock himself. Fairies, ghosts, and sprites were not the sort of safe   
topic that muggle writers were eager to tackle at the time. Without some sort of   
protection above and beyond the mundane, the offending writer was all too likely to find   
himself dancing on the end of a rope.  
But Malfoy, unlike many of his peers in Ravenclaw, and unlike Severus, was not   
the type to immerse himself in any aspect of academia, or even to do basic background   
research before signing up for the first annual Hogwarts talent contest in the dramatic   
reading category. As such, he remained on stage blissfully unaware that the emotion he   
was primarily fostering was amusement, not sorrow. Ten minutes in, though, Severus   
began to lose interest and his mind wandered back to the previous performer. Lily. Lily   
Evans. She was his secret obsession. She had to be. He couldn't even imagine what his   
friends would think if they knew he had fallen in love with a Gryffindor and a muggle.   
The first would amuse them. The second they would find nothing short of revolting. The   
secret rejoicing he had observed in his Third Year upon the opening of the Chamber of   
Secrets had made that clear enough.   
Applause sounded once again, mixed with snide remarks. Malfoy, still oblivious,   
bowed in proper Elizabethan fashion and headed back towards Severus and the other   
seventh year Slytherins. Conversation broke out as those assembled waited for the scores   
to be tallied. Severus forced a smile onto his face and, with all semblance of normality,   
joined his classmates in attempting to ridicule Lucius out of his newly founded dramatic   
ambitions.  
  
Lily Evans had the oddest sensation of being watched. A bit silly, she knew, as she   
was sitting in Hogwarts Great Hall surrounded by well over half the school, but still, she   
felt paranoia kicking in. Just then, James whispered something vaguely suggestive in her   
ear. She blushed, but turned around and kissed him anyway. From behind them, she   
heard familiar sounding cat calls. As James turned around to deal with his friends and   
fellow Gryffindors, Lily felt the feeling of being watched return. She looked around, and   
from across the hall she saw an unpleasant Slytherin boy with whom she was only   
vaguely acquainted looking at her intensely. For a moment, their eyes locked.  
But at that point, applause broke out as Headmaster Albus Dumbledore stepped   
forth to announce the winner.   
"Let me begin by saying a few words." Loud moans resounded from the audience.   
"Boo. Walk. Squirrelcookie. Thank you, Lucius for a brilliant rendition of that great   
muggle tragedy: Hamlet." Lily glanced over at Lucius, who looked more than a bit   
startled and annoyed by that revelation.  
"The judges have put their heads together, and come up with a winner for our grand   
prize: a gift certificate to the best candy store in Hogsmeade. Congratulations, Lily   
Evans!" The room erupted with the sounds of wizard crackers and wands making sparks   
in the air. Lily noticed that the four Marauders, counting on their share of the prize come   
the next Hogsmeade weekend, were particularly jubilant. As Lily started up towards the   
stage, she noticed a group of silent Slytherins towards the front. In the middle, however,   
she saw Severus Snape, wearing a typically serious expression, clapping earnestly.   
  
On the opposite side of the Great Hall, in the middle of the Hufflepuff section,   
someone else noticed Snape's apparent fixation as well. She's beautiful, thought Nina   
Cosanthium resentfully. No wonder she gets every guy she wants, and half of those she   
doesn't. The applause begin to die down, and students began to file out of the Great Hall.   
But, before she joined her friends in their cheerful banter about local gossip, she snuck   
one last mournful glance at Severus and saw him still looking, enraptured, at the group of   
departing Gryffindors.   
  



End file.
